Guest Post: Turning-Harlan F. Baudelaire

A little too bright breezing in
head turned right with a close-miss kiss
too close.
Something
other than bourbon is
living—
there.

You see for a second
brown-eyes-turned-black
and cross the room
escaping cuts from scalpel-sharp
intuition abuzz
from the company
of your lingering guest.

Choosing
to turn to the
left,
in silence,
enveloped by years of cold deficiencies
I count three anemic heartbeats then
float away.

This anesthetized pulse
drives down
the culpability
of knowing.

Turning, instead,
toward
retreat.

Harlan’s poetry explores the emotional and often concealed existence of women. In 2018, she has several works published by The Whisper and the Roar, A Feminist Literary Collective and Tiny Flames Press. Harlan is currently completing her first chapbook, The Music of Whispering Horses and Other Lies, which she plans to present in late 2019.